Home entertainment systems are able to receive a variety of different channels from various sources at any time of the day or night. The channels carry public, cable and/or satellite television programming. When a program is aired at an inconvenient time, such as when the viewer is at work or sleeping, the viewer can typically make arrangements to record the program using, for example, a videocassette recorder (“VCR”), a digital or personal video recorder (“DVR”), and the like. Once recorded, the viewer can play the recorded version of the program at a more convenient time.
Many home entertainment systems utilize an electronic program guide (EPG) along with a hardware/software system that provides the user with an enhanced experience. These systems can enable a user to search the EPG for programs of interest and have those programs automatically recorded so that they can later watch them. Microsoft's UltimateTV® is but one example of a home entertainment system that can greatly enhance a user's viewing experience.
One of the things that more sophisticated home entertainment systems allow, is for the user to record an entire series or season of a particular show. These users can simply set up what is known as a “series record” event via a user interface (UI) that is presented to the user. By specifying a show of interest and selecting the appropriate recording options, the user can have each of the programs of the series recorded to the system's hard disk for later viewing. The system then uses electronic program guide (EPG) data or “metadata” that is associated with the programs described in the EPG data that it receives to identify the programs of interest and record them.
The paradigm just described works fairly well with regularly broadcast programs. For example, a television series whose episodes are broadcast throughout the season, on the same channel and at the same time, is fairly easy to handle. Yet, there are instances that arise fairly frequently that depart from the paradigm of regularly broadcast programs, and which present challenges to system designers who desire to really enhance the user's viewing experience.
As an example, consider what will be referred to in this document as “special event programs”, such as those programs that might be related to a regularly broadcast program for which a user has set up a “series record” event. For example, the user may have set up a series record event to record each episode of Gilligan's Island. At some time in the future, perhaps another channel may broadcast a show entitled “The Making of Gilligan's Island”, which provides a behind-the-scenes look at the making of this series, as well as interviews with various actors who starred in the show. If the user is interested in the Gilligan's Island series, then there is a very good chance that they would be interested in “The Making of Gilligan's Island”. Yet, the series record event that the user set up to record the series episodes will not record this special event. Unless the user physically accesses the EPG and finds the program of interest, they will likely miss a related program which is highly likely to be of interest to them. Accordingly, the user's experience is not all that it might be.
As another example, consider a special event program in the form of a mini-series. A mini-series is typically a made-for-television show that is broken into several episodes that are broadcast sequentially, often on contiguous nights. Examples of mini-series include Roots and Shogun. If a user watches the first episode of a mini-series and finds it interesting enough to want to watch the other episodes, but forgets to set up a series record event on the mini-series, if they are not physically present during the next broadcasts, they will miss one or more of the subsequently broadcast episodes. Again, the user's experience is not all that it might be.
Accordingly, this invention arose out of concerns associated with providing improved methods and systems for enhancing a user's viewing experience.